6 nukes fly over the US unnoticed

[Khamsin]

And if the nukes did blow up unintentionally somehow, they'd be nukin' dirty.

[Koyuki]

Venture beat me to it. Even "fat man" blew up above the [Nagasaki] city (I didn't wiki, just remembered) before turning it into dust.

Besides, haven't you guys seen movies where you have to input codes and turn two keys at the same time etc. to activate the warheads? The thing won't just blow up even if it's dropped <_<;

Because movies are always completely accurate.

[Rigor]

I have to agree with Khamsim, I thought that the actual warheads were flying, not just attached to a plane.

I'm not too worried since it was our military flying these warheads over our country. Maybe I am just a bit desensitized since I live about 50 miles from one of the biggest targets for foreign attacks (N.O.R.A.D.), or atleast former target. I think they dismantled most of what NORAD was.

[Charla]

Actually what I imagined before reading the article was someone that forgot Samoa or whatever was considered American territory, flew a missile over it and got in trouble. The real story isn't much better or worse, really.

[Yarrsarusrex]

Don't exactly dumb drop a nuclear warhead on someone and have it explode. Things aren't designed to explode on the ground, anyhow. You have to arm them and prep them to airburst over targets so the blast pretty much flattens everything below it. They were carrying it on their wings, so if it fell of or released, it would have been about as effective as one-ton sack of rocks landing wherever it landed. You'd have to be sheer more magnitudes of stupid on the ground crew to not notice the difference between arming a conventional bomb, and a nuclear one. Imagine if they had tried to arm it, we wouldn't have heard about it, because the mistake would have became obvious.

People get their panties in a wad anytime you say 'nuclear' and 'America'. It's pretty typical American ignorance on any subject to react to a flashy headline. Especially those that have political slander, or center around a hotbed issue of the time. You want some really kooky logistics and security issues pertaining to nuclear weapons handling? Travel to Russia. Half the time we're not even sure their government is in control of their military, much less their nuclear arsenal. Compared to them, our shit smells like cologne.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Seriously, I was pulling my hair out reading the retarded posts people were making. People are acting like flying those bombs around is the same as pointing a loaded gun to someone's head.

[Beckwin]

Don't exactly dumb drop a nuclear warhead on someone and have it explode. Things aren't designed to explode on the ground, anyhow. You have to arm them and prep them to airburst over targets so the blast pretty much flattens everything below it. They were carrying it on their wings, so if it fell of or released, it would have been about as effective as one-ton sack of rocks landing wherever it landed. You'd have to be sheer more magnitudes of stupid on the ground crew to not notice the difference between arming a conventional bomb, and a nuclear one. Imagine if they had tried to arm it, we wouldn't have heard about it, because the mistake would have became obvious.

People get their panties in a wad anytime you say 'nuclear' and 'America'. It's pretty typical American ignorance on any subject to react to a flashy headline. Especially those that have political slander, or center around a hotbed issue of the time. You want some really kooky logistics and security issues pertaining to nuclear weapons handling? Travel to Russia. Half the time we're not even sure their government is in control of their military, much less their nuclear arsenal. Compared to them, our shit smells like cologne.

The event still speaks volumes about ineptitude- not just one, but six of the most dangerous weapons known to man "mistakenly" strapped on to a plane. Not transported on a guarded train/convoy or boxed up in a cargo plane.

Obviously the military is taking the fuck-up pretty seriously. Nuclear technology is amazing and generally not as volatile as most people think, but you have to be extremely careful because an accident could be catastrophic and wouldn't fix itself for decades. There's also a security issue involved when the US doesn't exactly know where it's warheads are.

On the other hand, maybe the Army should check Saddam's old bombers; might find those WMDs strapped under the wings!

[Niiro]

It'd be like if I wrote an article titled "6 chicken nuggets fly over the US unnoticed". People's first vision would be of 6 chicken nuggets in the air and nobody looking, rather the nuggets being tucked away on a plane (or under its wings).

This made me lol, hard.

And yes the title is definitely (and no doubt intentionally) misleading in order to grab your attention and put seeds of assumption in the reader's head to make the situation sound different (and more exciting) than it actually is.

[aers]

Did anyone else see the title and think it was like, 6 nuclear missiles that somehow went undetected before reading the article..?

[Norelco]

I love all the attention this thread is getting just because of the title. :D At least it's being discussed.

[Tyche]

Nuclear bombs have exploded unintentionally in the past from an air collision during refueling. It was back in the 60's. Iirc, there were 3 bombs, one exploded, one was discovered on land in tact, and the other was at the bottom of the ocean for months before it was ever found, also in tact. So yeah, if the plane were to somehow crash, it could have became a very serious problem. With that said, I don't find it to be as big of a deal as the media is making it out to be. The military is taking the proper pre-cautions to prevent this from happening again (although I think you'd be naive to think that this doesn't happen more often than reported). But bandwagon incompetency comments are always welcome, as well as the "i'm moving to ...". Let's go ahead and blame Bush as well.

edit: Link to accident in the 60's info. I was a bit off on my details.

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=5111

[Ohemgee]

What comes to mind when unintentional arsenals are found in unintentional places?
















http://www.channel4.com/film/media/i...02--film-A.jpg

[BRP]

This thread(and article)'s title leads to disappointment ;/(for the better I suppose!). It's one of those headline tricks. I have to agree with Tyche's post, well the latter part of it anyway.

[Septimus]

Don't exactly dumb drop a nuclear warhead on someone and have it explode. Things aren't designed to explode on the ground, anyhow. You have to arm them and prep them to airburst over targets so the blast pretty much flattens everything below it. They were carrying it on their wings, so if it fell of or released, it would have been about as effective as one-ton sack of rocks landing wherever it landed. You'd have to be sheer more magnitudes of stupid on the ground crew to not notice the difference between arming a conventional bomb, and a nuclear one. Imagine if they had tried to arm it, we wouldn't have heard about it, because the mistake would have became obvious.

People get their panties in a wad anytime you say 'nuclear' and 'America'. It's pretty typical American ignorance on any subject to react to a flashy headline. Especially those that have political slander, or center around a hotbed issue of the time. You want some really kooky logistics and security issues pertaining to nuclear weapons handling? Travel to Russia. Half the time we're not even sure their government is in control of their military, much less their nuclear arsenal. Compared to them, our shit smells like cologne.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Seriously, I was pulling my hair out reading the retarded posts people were making. People are acting like flying those bombs around is the same as pointing a loaded gun to someone's head.

Using the same logic, what is the problem with pointing a loaded gun to someone's head as long as you don't pull the trigger?

[Charla]

I think the proper analogy would be a gun loaded with blanks. That's what the two posts you quoted were saying at least.

[Khamsin]

Don't exactly dumb drop a nuclear warhead on someone and have it explode. Things aren't designed to explode on the ground, anyhow. You have to arm them and prep them to airburst over targets so the blast pretty much flattens everything below it. They were carrying it on their wings, so if it fell of or released, it would have been about as effective as one-ton sack of rocks landing wherever it landed. You'd have to be sheer more magnitudes of stupid on the ground crew to not notice the difference between arming a conventional bomb, and a nuclear one. Imagine if they had tried to arm it, we wouldn't have heard about it, because the mistake would have became obvious.

People get their panties in a wad anytime you say 'nuclear' and 'America'. It's pretty typical American ignorance on any subject to react to a flashy headline. Especially those that have political slander, or center around a hotbed issue of the time. You want some really kooky logistics and security issues pertaining to nuclear weapons handling? Travel to Russia. Half the time we're not even sure their government is in control of their military, much less their nuclear arsenal. Compared to them, our shit smells like cologne.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Seriously, I was pulling my hair out reading the retarded posts people were making. People are acting like flying those bombs around is the same as pointing a loaded gun to someone's head.

Using the same logic, what is the problem with pointing a loaded gun to someone's head as long as you don't pull the trigger?

Nothing, if the safety's on.

[Septimus]

I think the proper analogy would be a gun loaded with blanks. That's what the two posts you quoted were saying at least.

Blanks can still kill if they are fired close enough.

Nothing, if the safety's on.

You would still be thrown in jail if the cops were called.

[Shuichi]

The fact that 6 nuclear warheads were "missing" for a time is dangerous enough. Also, read about the base they were flown to in the link below. The reason why we haven't heard the "roll out of the new product" the Iran war, is because Bush hasn't gotten the money yet from Congress. That's the 50 billion or so he's been asking for. So draw whatever conclusions you may from this information.

http://tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/200 ... e_for_iran

[Khamsin]

I think the proper analogy would be a gun loaded with blanks. That's what the two posts you quoted were saying at least.

Blanks can still kill if they are fired close enough.

Nothing, if the safety's on.

You would still be thrown in jail if the cops were called.

Just like the guy who strapped the nukes to the plane and flew across the country!

..or did he go to jail? Well, in the world of analogies, I guess its close enough.

[Septimus]

I think the proper analogy would be a gun loaded with blanks. That's what the two posts you quoted were saying at least.

Blanks can still kill if they are fired close enough.

Nothing, if the safety's on.

You would still be thrown in jail if the cops were called.

Just like the guy who strapped the nukes to the plane and flew across the country!

..or did he go to jail? Well, in the world of analogies, I guess its close enough.

The point is dangerous or not, they obviously mishandled the movement of nuclear weapons. It does not matter that there was no danger of detonation, important protocols were ignored.

[Charla]

The real problem is that an unloaded gun still scares people. And as you can see from the fact that there's an article about it, so does the word nuke.